The Age of Zeus

35. CUL-DE-SAC

T he Resistenza members did their bit, descending in a sweeping arc from behind the Minotaur, driving it downslope with small arms fire. There were too many of them for it to pick one to charge at. Whenever it turned menacingly on any of its pursuers, bullets would spray at it from another direction and, confused, maddened, the monster would recoil and lumber away to escape the stinging barrage.

The Corsicans yelped with glee and pressed the Minotaur harder. They had it on the run. But success made them bold, and boldness made them reckless. One of them dared himself to go right up to the beast, puffing out his chest and singing a folk tune about foxes and wolves that was an uncomplimentary allegory of French colonialism. The Minotaur rounded on him with a startling turn of speed, impaling him in the belly then flipping him high into the air. Entrails uncoiled as the Corsican spun skyward. He landed on rocks with an immense splash of blood, bursting like a bag of water.

From then on, everyone was a bit more cautious. But the herding continued.

A village below was the designated kill zone. It nestled at one end of a steep-sided valley, in a natural bottleneck. The residents had been instructed to stay indoors and were heeding the warning. Iapetus and Hyperion were stationed at the village's two main entry points, waiting for the monster to appear. The other three Titans were strategically positioned in the streets.

The boom of a shotgun announced that the Minotaur had arrived.

"Buckshot up the clacker. Don't much like that, do you, you flaming mongrel," said Iapetus. "Crius, it's coming your way."

"Roger that." Moments later there was the chunky staccato of an assault rifle on triple-burst setting. "Tethys, Mnemosyne, it's heading straight for you now."

"Roger, Crius," said Sam. "We're cloaked and ready." She looked over at Mnemosyne, whose battlesuit was brick-red like the wall she was standing against. Mnemosyne had the coilgun. To her fell responsibility for delivering the fatal shot.

"I'm scared as all buggery," Mnemosyne said off-comms.

"Don't be," Sam said. "You can do this. Just stay calm. Wait for me to give you the OK."

The Minotaur lurched into view. It lumbered up the road towards them, glistening with sweat, eyes panic-wild. It passed straight between the two Titans, seeing neither, and ran headlong into the cul-de-sac whose mouth they were flanking. Only at the last moment, as the end of the cul-de-sac loomed before it, did the Minotaur realise it had blundered into a blind alley. It turned in order to retrace its steps, and that was when two human figures seemed to manifest in front of it from nowhere. Magically, they detached themselves from the walls on either side, blocking its route to freedom.

The idea was that Sam would pin the monster down with suppressing fire from her submachine gun so as to allow Mnemosyne to line up a clean, surgical takedown shot. Landesman was confident the coilgun's superior velocity would be able to put a bullet through the Minotaur's hide where other, lesser guns could not.

But Sam, of course, was brewing another plan. When she saw the look of resignation in the Minotaur's eyes, that clinched it for her. Ignoring the protestations of Hyperion from afar, she had Mnemosyne temporarily stand down, then fitted on and activated a pair of stun-dusters. Fists crackling with voltage, she ran to meet the charging Minotaur head-on.

Don't fuck it up.

Her weight was no match for the monster's but her momentum was. The two of them collided halfway along the cul-de-sac, and even through the suit Sam felt the jarring impact. But the Minotaur was the one who was shunted backwards, not her, and Sam felt a surge of something like hilarity bubble up in her as she pushed the monster bodily along the road, less than a hundred pounds of woman successfully manhandling a creature more than four times bulkier. She rammed the Minotaur against the wall at the end, brickwork cracking, mortar dust puffing.

Voices were yelling in her ear — Landesman's, Hyperion's, McCann's, even Lillicrap's. Everyone wanted to know what the hell she thought she was up to. Loud as all the shouting was, however, the pounding of her blood was louder.

The Minotaur bellowed. Its musk smell was almost overpoweringly rank. Sam grappled with the monster, pushing it against the wall, using every ounce of suit-enhanced strength to keep it in place. The Minotaur butted her, its horns clattering on her helmet. She ducked her head and, one-armed, punched the monster in the gut. Electricity sparked from the stun-duster and the Minotaur let out a roar of pain. She punched again, and the beast convulsed from head to toe.

But it didn't fall and it didn't stop struggling either. And then a kick from a powerful leg booted Sam in the midriff and sent her hurtling through space. She crashed into an iron gate; through the gate into a small courtyard; across the courtyard into a wooden bench, which was smashed to kindling. Immediately she was back on her feet, thanking her stars that the courtyard was empty — no one there to be injured by a flying Titan. A second later the enraged Minotaur burst in through the gateway. Sam went for it, taking it down with a waist-high rugby tackle. Monster and Titan went tumbling to the ground. There was grappling, jockeying for advantage. A table overturned. An earthenware urn full of herbs broke. Sam, almost to her surprise, found she had managed to gain the upper hand. Servos whirring, she levered herself on top of the Minotaur, straddling it. Three quick punches to its face depleted all the charge from her right stun-duster. The monster groaned. Blood-red eyes rolled in their sockets. She gave it a further couple of punches with her left stun-duster. The creature's skull was as sturdy as steel but the blows, and the million-volt jolts that came with them, took their toll. Sam clambered off its chest. The Minotaur made a feeble, flailing attempt to get up, but the best it could manage was propping itself on one elbow. Then it slumped back onto the courtyard flagstones, head sagging, tongue lolling out.

Panting hard, Sam knelt beside it. Eyes shut. Breathing slow. The monster was out cold. Neutralised. But alive.

Mnemosyne appeared in the gateway. She peeked in, coilgun at the ready.

"Bloomin' 'eck," she said. "You did it."

Sam nodded.

"So now what?"

"Yeah, now what?" Hyperion demanded, over Mnemosyne's shoulder. He barged past her into the courtyard. "What the fuck kind of stunt was that you just pulled?" He nudged the insensible Minotaur with one toecap. "It ain't even dead. What the hell are we supposed to do now? Sell it to a museum? Put it in a petting zoo? Huh?"

"Take it home," Sam replied simply.

"Yeah, right. Take it home. Are you nuts?"

At Bleaney, Landesman echoed the sentiment. "Tethys, have you quite taken leave of your senses? Bring the Minotaur here? How? More to the point, why?"

"I don't expect you to understand, any of you," Sam said. "But the Minotaur isn't just a monster. I don't think any of the monsters are just monsters, at least not the part-human ones. I think they're more than that. I think, buried in them, there's something else — a personality, a person even. I think they can be reasoned with, engaged with, won over. I think they could even be reformed and turned into useful assets. And I'd like to prove that with the Minotaur. At any rate I'd like to be able to try."

"Base, give the word and I'll bust a rocket in this thing's ass," said Hyperion. "Turn it into ground beef."

"Don't you dare, Hyperion," Sam said. "Don't even think about it. I just risked my neck to take it alive. I've earned the right to do what I want with it."

"Right, schmight. Base? Overrule her. We can't just turn Bleaney into a goddamn monster sanctuary."

Silence from Landesman.

"Base?"

"I'm thinking, Hyperion."

"You can't seriously be… Ah, c'mon! No way!"

"Very well, Tethys," Landesman said finally. "You get your wish. We'll make preparations this end. How you get the Minotaur here is up to you."

"I'll find a way."

"I'm sure you will. This is, it goes without saying, sheer insanity. But you've laid out a decent enough argument, and if there's even a slim possibility of what you're proposing working, then it's worth a shot. Let's just hope that my faith in your powers of logic and reasoning isn't, in this instance, misplaced."

Sam didn't say anything, but she herself was hoping much the same.